One Can Make a Difference Read Online Free Page A

of us crawled out of the same swamp. Nothing happens in a vacuum, the butterfly flaps her wings in one part of the world and there’s an effect in another; we use all this fuel in the West and there’s severe flooding thousands of miles away across the ocean. The idea comes up all the time now. I bought the domain name, www.sixdegrees.org , brainstormed with friends and family, and the folks at Network for Good who said, “Great, we’ll do it with you” and created a new way to give.
    Through this site, people can learn about and support various charities. It’s celebrity-driven, which gives us press attention for the causes. But anyone can put up a badge for their favorite charity. You can say, “I believe in animal rights,” “I want to find a cure for autism,” or whatever moves you. We have little races to see which charity gets the most donations and then I donate my own money to boost the top ones. I’m excited because it’s a viral sort of thing. People like to go to Amazon.com to shop and online charity giving is as easy as that. I’m hoping it spreads exponentially. People get in touch with each other this way. They can post pictures of their friends, say “this is my favorite band,” and “by the way, let’s help save the rainforest.”
    That’s powerful stuff. That’s the kind of “six degrees” we need to tap into.
    Doing good work makes you feel good, makes you feel as if you have some control over your life and your future. I have this joke motto: someone asks me, “How are you doing?” and my answer is “I’m doing what I can with what I’ve got.” That can work for everyone.

BRIGITTE BARDOT
    Sex Kitten and Matriarch of Mice
    Brigitte Bardot’s movies were the talk of the Western world. She made fifty of them in twenty years, some light French farces, some sex romps on the beach, perhaps none more well known than Et Dieu Crea Eve , or And God Created Woman . She was the epitome of the fantasy female. She was, however, deeply unhappy in the role. And, although she stuck it out for twenty years, she did it while fighting depression. At the age of forty, Brigitte Bardot took her pouty lips and went home to the south of France, vowing never to appear on the screen again. She had made the decision to do what her heart told her she must: champion the cause of animal rights. No matter what directors said or did to try to persuade her to return—and many tried hard to get her back—when Madam Bardot said “non!” she meant “non!”
    In 2006, I happened to go to Paris to protest Jean-Paul Gautier’s use of baby foxes as panels in a frock coat (the bodice of which was made of calves’ hide trimmed with lamb). Madam Bardot had been in the city a few days before, on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the Brigitte Bardot Foundation, and had delivered a rousing speech to thunderous applause about the responsibility to stop cruelty. Now, from her home outside St. Tropez, she heard on the nightly news that I had been arrested. She immediately fired off a letter to the jail and, more importantly, to Monsieur Gautier, asking him to be decent enough to hear the animals’ cries and creative enough to abandon fur designs. As soon as I heard of her action, I was reminded that her sassiness, her independence, and her activism belonged in this book.
    I had an unhappy childhood, but I have a happy childhood memory. When I was ten years old, I managed to rescue a tiny mouse who appeared at our dinner table. My father wanted to kill this little creature, but, luckily, she ran up my sleeve into my sweater. My parents thought that I was itching, that I had a rash. It was quite funny! Later on, during the night, I went downstairs and released her into our garden. I saved her! It was my first official animal rescue and one of the most fulfilling moments of my life, although I